Vanitas

Video, stereo audio 3’ loop, 2020

Following the video Lacrimosa, the fragment of sculpture filmed in Vanitas is that of St. Teresa of Avila represented by Bernini in a state of ambivalent ecstasy. Digitally inlaid, a water vapor gradually soaks the surface of the museum showcase.

In discussing the meaning of this biblical text, one literary critic notes the « metaphorical kernel » of the Hebrew word « hebel ». This word, translated in the Vulgate as vanitas, literally denotes vapor, breath, mist or fog, and by extension it comes to signify something that quickly passes away, something transient and lacking substance, something that can easily become nothing, in other words, emptiness, vanitas.